Natural Disasters: I Think Not

• Sally Aitken, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2017

If you have a school like mine then you probably know that during your science lessons you learn all about different planets and the way they work. But did you ever think that somewhere there is an alien school learning about earth? Well there probably is. This is the story of the model earth.

As Hayley’s clammy hands gripped earth by America and China, her globe was sliding between her sweaty fingertips. Mars bar high schools biggest ever science fair was here, and Hayley’s hard work had paid of as she looked at her earth. As her hover board pulled up to school she saw all sorts of projects around, model volcanos, potato powered light bulbs and the life cycle of a butterfly.

Judging was just about to begin when her best friend Kayla came over with a large cardboard box labeled ‘blue frogs’. Hayley stared at the box with a look that could only be described as unfortunate. Kayla’s eyes were large as she stood proudly holding her box, “ look look look look look!!!!” She said excitedly. Pushing the box towards Hayley. She tipped of the corner of the box and peaked in, suddenly Hayley was hit in the face by a slimy blue frog which clung to her face causing her to fall back. As she struggled to free herself from the monster frog Kayla was looking on happily at what she had created. When Hayley finally managed to free herself from the frog and he went flying across the room. “William!!!!!” Kayla called to her frog, “ I’m coming!”. Soon after Kayla came back with ‘William’ hidden in her hands, her lip was pouted and she was about to cry. “ he’s, he’s, he’s dead!!!!” She wailed. “Killed on impact!”. As she was crying, she kicked the table on where Hayley’s earth sat. Earth rolled of the table and on the floor. “ no!!!” Hayley chased after her project. And that is the story of the earth quakes in Italy. Earth then crashed into David’s ant farm and dirt went everywhere, hence the meter shower. When she had arrived back at her stand the judges were waiting, Hayley stumbled about to clean her planet but it was completely ruined. “Damn it,” Hayley muttered under her breath. She showed the judges a photo that she took before, they nodded their heads, wrote something down and walked on. After an hour of painfully slow waiting they announced the winner. “ and the winner is… Tyler for his model volcano!!!”


After the announcement Hayley went to the judges to ask why she didn’t win. “you know my project looked better before the frog thing?” She asked shyly,
“yes, but,” he replied in a deep voice, “ it was a completely unrealistic project! I mean earth! It isn’t even a real place, you should of done it on a real place like the planet of the apes. Now THAT would have been a good project!”